Chapter 1
Amelia
The night was a cold, black thing crouched just outside the ring of firelight. Eighteen-year-old Amelia Black shivered and wrapped her auto-warm blanket tighter around herself. According to the SmartFlex she kept in the side pocket of her cargo pants, it was a frigid forty-one degrees. It felt colder.
For the last week, they’d been inching closer to downtown, maneuvering their two trucks around the husks of thousands of abandoned vehicles clogging Interstate 75 leading into the heart of Atlanta.
“I still think a fire is too dangerous,” her brother Silas grumbled. His lawn chair was pulled as close to the flames as possible, his shoulders hunched, his hands held palms up for warmth. The glow of the firelight revealed his features sharpened from the hard living over the last three months. His face was lean and wolfish. His gray eyes sparked. “Anyone could see us.”
“It was start a fire or freeze,” Micah said from beside her.
They’d had to build a fire every night—the risk of freezing to death was worse. Where they couldn’t find firewood, they hacked up chairs and tables as kindling. Once, when they couldn’t find a fireplace, they opened the windows and laid on the floor to escape the choking smoke, just thankful to be warm.
They slept with their weapons beside them, two people always on watch. They’d seen a few furtive movements from a distance, but they hadn’t come into close contact with anyone since they’d left Harmony and Sweet Creek Farm after the Headhunters’ attack, her mother’s capture, and Nadira’s death.
Though Harmony had betrayed them, she’d also warned them of the dangerous killers known as Pyros. This was a brave new world. Danger lay in wait everywhere. But they couldn’t back down now. They were headed into Atlanta to ambush the Headhunters to rescue her mother before they reached the Sanctuary.
Amelia missed her mother like a physical ache in her chest. She’d spent far too long resenting and misjudging her, barely getting her back before she was taken by the Headhunters.
But her mother was still alive. She had to believe that. The Headhunters were violent but pragmatic. Her mother was worth more alive than dead.
After they rescued her mother, they’d find the Sanctuary. Hopefully, the scientists there could find a cure for the Hydra virus with Amelia’s blood. There were answers waiting for them at the Sanctuary. It would be their salvation or their destruction; Amelia still wasn’t sure which.
Willow slurped the last bite of her kidney beans and tossed the empty can at the fire. “That was filling. Not.”
On Willow’s other side, eight-year-old Benjie sat next to Finn, teaching him a new card trick from the tattered Magic Tips for the Advanced Beginner paperback that Micah had found.
Across from Willow, Celeste huddled on a stump, shivering in her lavender sweater, her mass of tightly coiled, cranberry-red curls bound in a ponytail. She was model-tall and svelte, but her cheekbones were sharp, the hollows beneath her eyes deep and shadowed. Her rich, earth-tone skin had a dull tinge to it.
She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since Nadira’s death a week ago. They all had. Even Tyler Horne, the cocky former CEO, was more subdued. He obeyed Jericho without too much trouble, and took his watch shifts without complaining.
He and Jericho were guarding the outskirts of the camp they’d set up for the night. Once they’d gotten as warm as they could, they’d head inside the abandoned house and take shelter until morning. They were in a nice neighborhood of stately homes, wrought-iron fences, and massive, overgrown lawns. But the only thing that mattered now was whether the place was safe and clear of decomposing, disease-infested bodies.
Amelia tugged at the mask around her neck. She was immune, but she wore it anyway. They all wore them during the day, but pulled them off once they’d found a place to hunker down. They wore gloves, too—always careful, always mindful of the agonizing death that awaited from a single, tiny mistake.
Across the fire, Gabriel Ramos Rivera met her gaze. His full mouth curled into a lazy, sensuous smile.
Her heart gave that same treacherous jolt it always did when she caught him watching her. His broad shoulders and tall, muscular body cut an impressive form against the firelight. With his curly black hair, scruffy goatee, and bronze Puerto Rican skin, he was as roguishly handsome as ever.
No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t forget his lips on hers, his dark eyes smoldering with desire and need and pain. Their desperate hours trapped in the belly of the hijacked Grand Voyager had linked them, connecting them forever whether Amelia liked it or not. She’d revealed her soul to him, and he’d turned around and betrayed her.
She wanted to break her gaze from his, but she refused. He was the one in the wrong. He was the one who should be filled with shame. As if reading her thoughts, his face contorted, a shadow passing over his features. He looked away first.
She shifted her gaze to the fire. She wasn’t the same girl he’d handed over to the terrorists. She’d survived too much, come too far.
“You okay?” Micah asked quietly. He was a warm, comforting presence next to her. His face had grown leaner in the last several months, but it was still round and boyish, his wavy dark hair falling haphazardly across his forehead. His eyes behind his glasses were a soft, gentle brown. “How are you feeling?”
He meant her epilepsy. Anxiety roiled in her stomach. She’d gone without her medication for a week. Her mother had used the last emergency auto-injector on her when the fever from the Hydra virus had triggered a seizure.
Out here, without medical intervention, another seizure could disable or kill her. She sucked in her breath, forcing herself to focus. Worrying about it wouldn’t change anything. “I’m fine, for now. Thank you.”
“Are you sure?” He knew she was worried about what awaited them once they reached the Sanctuary, but he didn’t know exactly why. She hadn’t told him everything, not yet.
Her old life of secrets, lies, and distrust died hard. Her mother had cautioned her repeatedly about how dangerous it would be for Amelia and Silas if anyone found out the truth. Trust no one, she’d warned.
But Amelia was tired of fear. She’d lived in fear most of her life. A week ago, the night the falling stars streaked across the night sky, she’d promised herself she would open herself to hope. And to do that, she needed to trust. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.” Micah placed the dog-eared copy of Call of the Wild on his lap.
Everyone else was busy chatting, fitfully dozing, or staring at the fire, lost in their own thoughts. This was as much privacy as they’d had all week.
She glanced across the fire at Gabriel. This wouldn’t be easy. She wasn’t used to trust, to vulnerability. Not after a childhood raised on fear and secrets. But she couldn’t let them have any more power over her—not Gabriel, not Kane, not Simeon, and not her father. They’d all tried to break her in their own way. They’d all failed.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for not telling you before,” she said haltingly. There was no way to cushion her words, so she simply blurted them out. “The New Patriots weren’t behind the Hydra Virus.”
Micah stiffened beside her. Like everyone else, he’d believed that the radicalized group to which his brother belonged had not only hijacked the Grand Voyager, they’d also released the Hydra bioweapon, the genetically engineered virus that had killed ninety-five percent of the world’s population in a matter of weeks. “What? How do you know?”
“Because—” She sucked in a breath, reaching instinctively for the charm bracelet bound to the leather cord circling her neck and tucked beneath her shirt. “Because it was my father who did it.”
The chill seemed to deepen around her. Would Micah reject her? Hate her? Blame her?
“Tell me,” he said gently. There was no recrimination in his voice. No bitterness or judgment.
She told him everything—how her father had designed the bioweapon and released it through the universal flu vaccine his company, BioGen, had distributed to the American public, carefully selecting one hundred thousand victims from the poorest communities to receive a fatal dose. “It was supposed to terrify the people into passing the Safe and Secure Act. The Unity Coalition had plans to monitor every citizen with the VitaliChip implant. Just one more step in cementing their power and control.”
Micah glanced at Tyler Horne. “Was Horne in on it?”
He stood guard at the edge of the firelight, facing toward the street, his semi-automatic cradled in his arms. Both handsome and incredibly vain, he had symmetrical features, a square jaw, and floppy blonde hair that he still managed to style—even in the apocalypse.
Amelia shook her head. “I don’t think so. Tyler Horne’s company, VitaliChip Industries, was a subsidiary of BioGen. They stood to make billions when the microchips became mandatory. But my father and his associates wouldn’t have trusted someone like Horne with the truth.”
“Why would he want to kill his own citizens?”
“Because they planned to blame it on the New Patriots all along. A massive-scale terrorist attack would let them pass just about any law they wished, which they did. People will trade their rights for safety. The Unity Coalition had been consolidating their power for years. They wanted to take over the U.S. government, to wrest the last remnants of power. And they were willing to do it by any means necessary.”
“But they killed billions.”
“That wasn’t their plan.” Amelia remembered all the terrible things her father had said on the bridge of the Grand Voyager, his face bloodied, a gun to his temple, surrounded by terrorists who wanted nothing more than to kill them both, his eyes hateful and defiant until the end. “The virus they engineered interacted with the bat-flu virus that was already an epidemic. The new, mutated virus was highly contagious and deadlier than either of them put together.”
“And my brother . . .”
“He still hijacked the Grand Voyager. But Gabriel told you the truth. The New Patriots were trying to stop the Unity Coalition and the microchip implant law. Once they found out about the bioweapon, they tried to force my father to give them the cure. But he refused. Gabriel had nothing to do with the Hydra Virus.”
Micah let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay.”
Amelia clasped her hands on her lap. She stared at the flames until her vision blurred. “My father wasn’t the mastermind. He was working with others. We don’t know who. Vice-President Sloane—well, President Sloane, now—was a member of the Unity Coalition. So were several other senators and high-ranking government officials.”
“You think they might be in this Sanctuary place,” he said, reading her thoughts.
“Silas, my mother, Gabriel, and myself know the New Patriots were used as patsies. If any surviving members of the Unity Coalition were to find out what we know ...”
“They’d want to eradicate any threat to their power. Whatever’s left of it, anyway.”
Amelia nodded heavily, suddenly feeling her exhaustion. Her muscles ached. Her eyes burned. “Even in the apocalypse, some things never change.”
Micah was quiet for a long moment. The wind picked up. The thin line of trees at the edge of the yard swayed. Bare branches sawed against each other, making strangely haunting sounds.
Almost like a violin. She touched the permanent indents on the pads of her fingers. “I’ve wanted to tell you for months. But I was afraid. And with everything going on, struggling to find our next meal and not get killed, it was easy to simply not tell you. But I hated that you believed that Gabriel was guilty of such a thing. I mean, he’s guilty of plenty, but…”
“He’s not guilty of destroying the world as we know it,” Micah said wryly.
“You deserve to know the truth. Gabriel—” she swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat, “—he knew and didn’t tell anyone, even though it made everyone believe he was a monster.” Gabriel was an enigma. He’d both betrayed her and protected her, lied to her and kept her secrets. She couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Micah touched his shoulder to hers. “I won’t tell anyone either.”
“It makes me sick,” she whispered, “to know it was my own father who did this.” It sickened and terrified her. Thoughts of her father always brought a knot of fear and anger and shame, of grief and loathing—and beneath it all, a tangled, bitter love.
“It was him, not you. We aren’t responsible for the sins of others. Don’t ever forget that.”
Relieved, she gave him a shaky smile. Micah didn’t resent or despise her, not even for withholding the truth about his brother for so long. He was the same old Micah—loyal, solid, always there to lean on. Her truest friend. “Thank you.”
A twig snapped behind them. Amelia whipped around, twisting in her camp chair.
“What was that?” Benjie asked, his brown eyes wide. His black hair stuck up all over his head. He pulled his ratty Star Wars backpack onto his lap and clasped it to his chest, shivering.
“Just a squirrel,” Celeste mumbled.
“Nothing set off the trip wire,” Willow said, but she stood up anyway, her hand drifting to her holster.
The hairs on the back of Amelia’s neck prickled. She peered past the circle of firelight into the darkness surrounding them. The fire made the shadows shift and sway. Anything could be out there in the dark.
Hunting them.
Something moved.
Fear spiked up her spine. It could be a violent gang. An armed, dangerous loner. A pack of infected dogs. Or something larger, a tiger or bear that had escaped from the local zoo.
The shadows deepened beneath the trees. They seemed to solidify, taking the shapes of monsters and demons, then melted back into nothingness.
She rose to her feet, the blanket slipping off her shoulders.
Silas screamed.
Chapter 2
Gabriel
Twenty-one-year-old Gabriel leapt to his feet, yanking helplessly against the handcuffs binding his wrists. His heart jackhammered into his throat.
A massive shadow plunged into the center of the clearing. It bounded past Silas, smashing into his chair and knocking him on his ass.
Silas let out another sound that sounded an awful lot like a scream. Jericho came running.
Willow was already on her feet, gun pointed at the massive black shape whirling in front of the fire, sparks flying all around it. “Oh, hell.”
“It’s that scary-ass dog,” Silas growled from his position on the ground.
Gabriel might have laughed, if he wasn’t slightly terrified himself. His senses cleared as Silas’s words sank in. He let out his breath. “It’s the wolf.”
“Nothing gets past you, Sherlock,” Willow quipped, lowering her gun.
The huge black wolf stood in front of the fire, mere feet from Gabriel, his massive head taller than Gabriel’s waist. He stared at them with unblinking yellow eyes, his hackles raised, ears pricked, tongue lolling through sharp white fangs.
Before anyone could get their bearings or say another word, a figure sailed into the middle of the circle, dismounted a hoverboard, and dumped three dead rabbits and a bundle of sticks on the ground next to the fire. The figure pushed back the hood of a rain slicker, revealing a head of black hair and a pair of shining black eyes.
Everyone stared at her, their mouths open.
“You didn’t trip the alarm,” Jericho said, both alarmed and perplexed. Slowly, he lowered his rifle.
The girl’s expression didn’t change. “I watched you make it.”
“How did you follow us?” Silas asked suspiciously.
“You’re slow. And you bumble around like stampeding cattle.”
Willow let out a sharp laugh. She slumped back into her camp chair and shoved her unruly bangs out of her eyes. “You about gave us a heart attack, Raven.”
Raven was short, though not as short as Willow, who barely reached Gabriel’s shoulder. Her Asian heritage showed on her delicate-featured face, though there was nothing delicate in her fierce, unyielding expression.
Silas stood up shakily and pointed an indignant finger at the wolf. “Just keep that…that thing away from me.”
“Shadow goes where he wants. You try telling him what to do. See how it works out for you.” Raven pointed at the animal carcasses at her feet. “We caught dinner.”
Celeste looked appalled.
“I refuse to eat a rabbit,” Horne said, aghast, his pompous nose turned up at the very idea.
“Then don’t.” Raven dropped her backpack with the hoverboard sticking out of it to the ground and pulled a hunting knife from a sheath at her waist. She crouched on the ground, picked up one of the rabbits, and made a small cut along its back.
Horne stared at her. “I will not be turned into a greedy, mindless animal.”
“Greedy, mindless animals eat supper.” Raven paused and looked up, meeting Gabriel’s gaze. There was no fear or indecision in her dark eyes. “Do you know how to field dress a rabbit?”
He shook his head, suddenly embarrassed. Simeon had taught him to hack the government, how to fight, and how to kill people, not animals. He was a city boy. He didn’t know how to hunt or how to cook what he’d hunted.
Raven tsked in disgust. “Slow and stupid.” She grabbed the rabbit’s fur on either side of the cut she’d made and tugged, pulling the rabbit’s hide away from its body. She quickly chopped off the animal’s head and feet. Her hands moved deftly as she carefully sliced the rabbit’s belly skin from tail to chest. Its entrails slid out in a steaming pile.
“That poor rabbit,” Finn said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
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